Annoyed by seeing the GEICO plane out my office window circling around yet again and being a marketer, I was curious to know if any research had been done on the effectiveness of aerial advertising. Instead of finding a good discussion about the ROI of such a marketing campaign, instead I found a trail of crashed planes, emergency landings and other mishaps:

I was fortunate to receive a Cocktail Kingdom Thermometer Spoon for Christmas. Sadly out of the box its temperature did not match that of my Thermapen. I emailed in and Cocktail Kingdom advised, “The nut on the bottom of the thermometer adjusts the dials placement.” I tried that but still couldn’t get the thermometer to consistently match my Thermapen over a wide range of temps.

I think the thermometer spoon is a good idea in theory but in practice it didn’t live up to my expectations so I sent it back.

In trying to resurrect my old 1999 Rocky Mountain Blizzard mountain bike as a city commuter so I started looking into what it would take to remove the Marzocchi Bomber Z-2 Light fork and swap in a rigid 26″ fork. Turns out that it isn’t as simple as swapping in any old rigid fork. I needed to find a “suspension corrected” fork that has an “axle-to-crown” measurement 10-20% of the axle-to-crown measurement of the Marzocchi (445 axle-to-crown). In investigating rigid forks, I was shocked at the cost. Here are some that I found:

I got bit by the crystal clear ice bug after a trip to New York years ago. Recently a few products have popped up promising to make it easy to get crystal clear ice at home.

Wintersmiths Ice Chest – we backed the Kickstarter for this product at work and have used it to produce countless crystal clear ice balls. Overall it works reasonably well but it is a little finicky in terms of knowing how much to fill it up, getting the ice out, making sure you harvest every 24-36 hours… We did end up cracking one ice chest which they replaced for free.

Luma Comfort IM200SS Portable Clear Ice Maker – I don’t think the wife would approve but I’d love one of these. I bet I’d pay it back in a year based on how much ice I end up buying at the corner store because our freezer can’t produce enough to keep up with our summer partying.

I briefly considered starting an undershirt company because it drove me nuts that I couldn’t find an undershirt that other people couldn’t tell you were wearing. But then I found the Tommy John Second Skin Deep Vneck Undershirt. Problem solved! No one knows you’re wearing an undershirt under your white dress shirt even when you unbutton more than just the top button. The only thing not to like is the price. And that if you get the nude colored one your wife will make fun of you and call it spanx.

I recently went on the hunt for a stylish men’s bike helmet for urban riding. Here’s some I found that caught my eye.

Giro Reverb – this is the helmet I ended up buying. Primary reason is that it has vents which I like because I get a little sweaty biking and because I can easily attach a Vis 360 Light and Motion light to it. What I don’t like is that it feels and looks pretty big and bulky. I wish it was a little more sleek looking and feeling. I also wish it had a fit dial on the back and that one of the vents was big enough to put a u-lock through.

Giro Sutton Helmet – love the look! Sadly doesn’t accomodate my bike helmet. I love that you can directly attach a light to the rear, but I wish they had more detail on what rear lights fit. Also, why is it double the cost of the Reverb?